"Role Models" is a song by American
indie pop
Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with a DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and s ...
band
AJR
is an American pop band founded by brothers Met (), collectively a trio of vocalists, , and songwriters. The brothers grew up in New York City, primarily focused on busking, singing covers and street tap dancing until shifting to songwriting ...
, appearing on the 2018
deluxe edition
The terms special edition, limited edition, and variants such as deluxe edition, collector's edition or expanded edition are used as a marketing incentive for various kinds of products, originally published products related to the arts, such as b ...
of their second studio album, ''
The Click
Click or Klick may refer to:
Airlines
* Click Airways, a UAE airline
* Clickair, a Spanish airline
* MexicanaClick, a Mexican airline
Art, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
* Klicks, alien race in '' Star Drive''
* Click, minor c ...
'' (2017). It is the second song track in the edition and the album's fifteenth overall. The song tells the difficulty of separating art from its artist, naming
Kanye West
Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer and record producer. One of the most prominent figures in hip-hop, he is known for his varying musical style and polarizing cultural and political commentary. After ...
and
Louis C.K.
Louis Alfred Székely (; born September 12, 1967), known professionally as Louis C.K. (), is an American stand-up comedian, actor and filmmaker. C.K. has won three Peabody Awards, three Grammy Awards, six Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Act ...
as examples.
Background
"Role Models" is a politically driven song, written as a response to the
media controversy surrounding
Kanye West
Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer and record producer. One of the most prominent figures in hip-hop, he is known for his varying musical style and polarizing cultural and political commentary. After ...
, a significant influence on AJR's music. Band member Adam Met cited ''
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' is the fifth studio album by the American rapper Kanye West. It was released by Def Jam Recordings and Roc-A-Fella Records on November 22, 2010. Retreating to a self-imposed exile in Hawaii after a period of ...
'' (2010) as a favorite album of the trio in an interview with ''
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...
'', later describing the difficulty of enjoying it with knowledge of West's character outside of music. "Role Models" was written and recorded after the release of AJR's second studio album, ''
The Click
Click or Klick may refer to:
Airlines
* Click Airways, a UAE airline
* Clickair, a Spanish airline
* MexicanaClick, a Mexican airline
Art, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
* Klicks, alien race in '' Star Drive''
* Click, minor c ...
'' (2017),
receiving inclusion on the album's deluxe version on September 21, 2018. The song questions the dichotomy of appreciating an artist's work balanced with their flaws, resonating with the complexities of celebrity culture.
Composition and production
The instrumentation of "Role Models" primarily uses acoustic guitar,
additionally incorporating trumpet.
AJR initially created this as a demo, intending to later add elements of
electronic dance music
Electronic dance music (EDM), also referred to as dance music or club music, is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres originally made for nightclubs, raves, and List of electronic dance music festivals, festivals. It is generally ...
as extra production to make it fit with the album. This idea was scrapped as the band felt it subtracted from the song's meaning.
The song's guitar was recorded while the band toured in
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...
, artificially
distort
In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal ...
ing and
compressing it. Band member Ryan Met then took inspiration from
Fountains of Wayne
Fountains of Wayne is an American Rock music, rock band that formed in New York City in 1995. The band included founding members Chris Collingwood, Adam Schlesinger, Jody Porter, and Brian Young (drummer), Brian Young. They released six album ...
's song "Fire Island" to create a
reverberated trumpet that accompanied the guitar.
Music video
On September 25, 2018, AJR released a music video for "Role Models" with direction by Spencer Hord. In the video, the band performs the song with guitar and ukulele while sitting on wooden crates with dark attire and bare feet. The camera slowly zooms out four times throughout the song to reveal a minimalist warehouse before sharply zooming in after each chorus, doing so in
one shot. During the final portion, trumpeter JJ Kirkpatrick performs the song's trumpet behind the band.
Personnel
Credits adapted from
Tidal
Tidal is the adjectival form of tide.
Tidal may also refer to:
* ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple
* Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim
* TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music
* Tidal (servic ...
.
* Adam Met – bass guitar, backing vocals, keyboards
* Jack Met – lead vocals, percussion, guitar
* Ryan Met – backing vocals, ukulele,
production
Production may refer to:
Economics and business
* Production (economics)
* Production, the act of manufacturing goods
* Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services)
* Production as a stat ...
, programming,
audio mixing
Audio mixing is the process by which multiple sounds are combined into one or more audio channels. In the process, a source's volume level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated or enhanced. This practical, aest ...
*
Chris Gehringer
Chris Gehringer (born May 27, 1962) is an American mastering engineer at Sterling Sound in New Jersey.
Gehringer is known for having mastered recordings by popular artists such as AJR, Dua Lipa, Drake, Ed Sheeran, Gwen Stefani, Harry Styles, ...
–
mastering engineer
Mastering is a form of audio post production which is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the Audio mixing (recorded music), final mix to a data storage device called a master recording, the source ...
* Drew Allsbrook – guitar
* JJ Kirkpatrick – trumpet
* Jon Minor – deluxe adjustments
See also
*
List of one-shot music videos
A one-shot film (also known as a one-take film, single-take film, or continuous shot feature film) is a full-length movie filmed in one long take by a single camera, or manufactured to give the impression it was.
Use and theory
In a 2019 artic ...
References
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AJR songs
2018 songs